Pump It Up: We Refuel a Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicle

Fueling up a fuel cell is simple. Fueling up the infrastructure is another thing entirely.

We’ve been hearing a lot about hydrogen-powered fuel cells as a viable power source for everyday vehicles, and we’ve even seen and driven a few early examples, including the Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell and the Honda FCX Clarity, the latter being the world’s first fuel-cell-equipped retail automobile. But one of the most common questions people end up asking is one that few people—journalists included—have the answer to: What is it like to “gas” up one of those things?

We decided, then, to ask Chevrolet to lend us one of the 100 or so Equinox fuel-cell vehicles it has dedicated to its three-year Project Driveway market test, specifically in order to learn and practice the process of refueling the thing. We wanted to see how closely the process mirrors that of filling up a normal car, as well as what sort of adjustments are required.______________________________________

Training Required

Chevrolet agreed, but only after submitting us to a two-hour, engineer-led training session in West Los Angeles at one of a handful of hydrogen refueling stations currently on line in Southern California. The course focused on the location of all such stations in SoCal, the pump pressure offered at each (that determines how much H2 it can cram into the tanks), a briefing on the Project Driveway program in general, and a walk-around of the Equinox fuel cell itself, which we recently covered in detail after driving it in New York. And of course, eventually the engineers showed us how to actually connect all the hoses and fill ’er up. First, here’s how to get hydrogen from pump to tank.__________________________________________________________________________________

A Multi-Step Process

At this point, the process of getting the hydrogen from a storage tank to a vehicle’s tank involves a few more steps than a normal fill-up of super unleaded. After pulling up to the pump and verifying that the station is “online” by looking for the green light above the pump, one enters a numeric ID code on the pump’s touch screen.__________________________________________________________________________________

This electronically unlocks a box containing both the hydrogen nozzle and “communicator” harness—the latter basically a hose full of wires, and the former a hose full of pressurized hydrogen.__________________________________________________________________________________

Then it’s time to open the vehicle’s fuel door to ensure that a green LED above the fuel receptacle is lit, indicating that the vehicle is ready to receive fuel.__________________________________________________________________________________

Communication must then be established between the vehicle and the station pump, which is done by connecting the sprinkler-head-sized, multi-pronged plug at the end of the communicator harness into the receiving point on the vehicle. In the case of the Equinox, this point is located behind the rear license plate. The communicator tells the pump how much hydrogen is currently in the tank, as well as other vehicle-related data. This transfer of data smells of Big Brother, but we imagine that privacy advocacy groups may have something to say about this before it becomes too mainstream.__________________________________________________________________________________

Finally, the actual hydrogen nozzle, which is about the size of a fire hose, can be attached to the vehicle’s fuel receptacle, and upon sealing the deal—literally—via a twist-grip lever on the hose itself, hydrogen begins to flow in automatically.

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*AccuPayment estimates payments under various scenarios for budgeting and informational purposes only. AccuPayment does not state credit or lease terms that are available from a creditor or lessor, and AccuPayment is not an offer or promotion of a credit or lease transaction.